Economy is holding up — for the time being

The UK economy is performing well, according to official initial estimates for the third quarter.

Gross domestic product grew by 0.8% in the third quarter, according to the number crunchers at the Office for National Statistics.

The figure is open to revision, but is better than the City expected, and better than the 0.4% increase in the first quarter of the year. It is, however, down on the 1.2% rise for the second quarter of the year.

GDP was up 2.8% on the same quarter of 2009.

In the third quarter, manufacturing output increased by 1.0% on the second quarter, but was down on the 1.6% increase posted in the second quarter.

Manufacturing was 5.3% higher than the same quarter of 2009.

Output in the production industries was up by 0.6% against a 1.0% rise the second quarter and was 3.4% up on a year earlier.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “This estimate may be better than expected but with unemployment looking increasingly stubborn, the economy will need to perform stronger than this to generate jobs for the millions still out of work as a result of the recession.

“Even if the cuts do not force the UK back into recession they still risk a jobless recovery.”

www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/gdp1010.pdf

www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-18717-f0.cfm